Printer systems for printing barcodes and for transmitting data to a barcode printer are known. However, many such systems use proprietary methods of data encoding, and therefore such methods cannot be used interchangeably with other barcode printers. Also, known data encoding methods typically render the underlying data unreadable by humans. While this presents no impediment to the computer systems, it may be burdensome to humans attempting to review, debug or understand certain data appearing in the underlying barcode element names. In that regard, XML is an open standard that is being adopted by many business entities and is human-readable. Use of XML may avoid many of the problems and pitfalls associated with non-human readable methods.
Barcode labeling is used extensively in many facets of commerce. In particular, packages or merchandise shipped from one destination to another are identified by the shipper by a specific barcode label. Conversely, merchandise received may also be identified and entered into the receiver's inventory system by use of the barcode label. Often, the receiver of merchandise may dictate the form and content of the barcode applied by the shipper. This is referred to as “compliance labeling.” Of course, merchandise need not be shipped to avail itself of the benefits of barcode labeling. For example, inventory control systems make extensive use of barcode labeling to track and monitor various goods within a facility or between facilities.
Compliance labeling is typically used by buyers of merchandise having relatively large market power or purchasing power. Because of their economic power, they may be able to dictate the form and content of the barcode labels applied to products provided to them by their suppliers or vendors. Although this may be burdensome to the supplier, if the supplier desires to do business with the buyer, they must comply with their demands with respect to labeling. For example, large retailers, such as Wal-Mart, Inc., not only have the ability and purchasing power to require that suppliers meet their compliance labeling demands, but may also fine suppliers who fail to comply with the labeling requirements.
Further, such barcode labeling requirements may change at the whim of the entity demanding compliance. Accordingly, the supplier must implement the new labeling requirements and test the modified barcode to insure that it meets all specifications. This is relatively inefficient and time consuming. It is also prone to errors, which may translate into monetary fines.
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is increasing being used in addition to or in place of barcode labeling, to identify products as they move through the supply chain and on to consumers. Compliance labeling is being extended to include the application and encoding of RFID tags to pallets of goods, cartons, and individual products. Data about the products can be written to the tags and/or read from the tags. Data such as a product identification number can be stored on the tag, while data such as a unique tag identification number (which serializes the tag and associated product) can be retrieved from the tag.
A need exists to provide an open standard for defining barcode labeling information that is self-validating and which does not require significant software programming changes to implement a change in form or content of a barcode label. A need also exists for use of a format in which to provide data to a barcode printer where the data is understandable by a human reading the data.
A further need exists to permit an enterprise resource planning system (ERP) to format its data for transmission to a barcode printer system in XML, while additionally making use of existing ZPL format templates that govern the layout of the label and/or by making use of a pure XML format template that uses XSL (extensible stylesheet language) to govern the layout of the label to be printed. Additionally, a need exists for use of a format in which other data, such as RFID data, may be supplied to a device to effect encoding of the RFID data into embedded RFID circuits or other automatic identification devices. A need exists to return RFID data read from an RFID circuit to an ERP system or other host computer system.